In his new laboratory at McGill’s Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, Khoutorsky is examining how neuronal circuits in the spinal cord are remodeled to promote sensitivity to pain. He is interested in the extracellular matrix, a network of proteins that surrounds neurons. In the brain, this matrix appears to restrict the ability of neurons to form the new structures necessary for learning and memory. Enzymes that degrade the matrix are activated in some chronic pain conditions. Khoutorsky and his team will investigate how such degradation impacts spinal cord neurons that normally inhibit pain signals. They aim to determine how changes in the extracellular matrix might enable the neurons to become “hyperexcitable” and inappropriately propagate pain.